13

Friday the thirteenth comes on Tuesday (TODAY!) this month. Beware! Stay at home; don't even get out of bed.

For Jody Conradt, coach of the Texas Longhorns women's basketball team. You are a true pioneer, a leader by example, and such a class act. Someone will replace you on the sidelines, but no one can fill your shoes. Best wishes from Tennessee, Lady Vol Country!

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The following is a snippet from the short story Dan Dan the Holstein Man© that I composed last weekend.

Dan got a few of the seeds started inside the dark tool shed, soon transferring the small shoots to paper coffee cups and scattering them around the outside of the barn. When they outgrew these, he put them into some flower pots that his mom had stashed in the smokehouse. At that time, there wasn't a narc around every corner, and most people being ignorant of what the plants were, anywhere you put them in the sun was a good place. Besides, it was a very rural area and everybody tended to mind their own businesses. Just making sure the local varmints didn't eat his investment took a little time and was taken care of by some carefully manipulated pieces of chicken wire.

When the plants became about eighteen inches tall, he figured that it was time to put them in the ground in a safe place, just in case. And he knew just the place.

The big field was surrounded by a barb wire fence, and in one corner a black walnut tree grew to maturity. Around the tree sprouted a thicket of small cedar trees, various types of briars, a few dogwoods and sassafras, and plenty of honeysuckle to tangle the feet of the unwary. Near the base of the walnut tree, a clan of hornets built their paper nest and they loved their solitude.

The way the land lay, no part of the plants could be seen unless a person went into the heart of the thicket.

Perfect!


The above excerpt copyrighted © 2007 by Ken Anderson. All rights reserved.